Valley Crossing

In the Last Lecture we were given a Valley Crossing Activity by Dr. Mandi to explain to us the complex structure of an organization.

In this activity 3 people had to cross a valley and they were provided with a single pole. The activity demonstrated how an organization works, how the roles and responsibilities are assigned to the employees and how safety can become an important aspect in increasing the efficiency of the organization. 

Lets look into the valley crossing problem which will give us the insight in how the things work in any organization and how every link is important to achieve the goal as set by the organization. If one of the link fails, the whole connected system can collapse. So what is important is the teamwork which bind the system through different and connected links.

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships."

 

 An organization works primarily on the concept of “TEAMWORK”. All employees, as a part of organization, work together to achieve a common goal.  

 

A team is a group of people with various complementary skills, working together towards a common vision. Members of a team operate with high degree of trust, accountability and interdependence.

                                                          

 

 

A list of learning through this simple yet complex activity of valley crossing are:

 





 

Equally Responsible roles: Every role which an individual in the team is possessing is equally responsible. In a team every person shares a similar role but not the same role i.e. there is no differentiation of work between the persons doing the valley crossing. The responsibility and similarity of job can be seen from the table as below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step	State of 1st Person	State of 2nd person	State of 3rd person
1.	Safe	Safe	Safe
2.	Half-Risky	Safe	Safe
3.	Full-Risky	Safe	Safe
4.	Half-Risky	Half-Risky	Safe
5.	Safe	Full-Risky	Safe
6.	Safe	Half-Risky	Half-Risky
7.	Safe	Safe	Full-Risky
8.	Safe	Safe	Half-Risky
9.	Safe	Safe	Safe

 

 

 

 

Instantaneous communication and feedback: for a team to be efficient the communication should be instantaneous otherwise the links i.e. the team workers don’t get enough time to act to make the system efficient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Safety: Safety of every member is important and should not be compromised at any cost. If the employee feels sale while working for the organization, he gives the maximum to achieve the goal of the organization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interlocking roles: The more interlocked the employees are the more interdependent the organization is. And when the interdependency is maximum the profits are maximum. The team generates performance greater than the sum of performance of its individual members.

Members help other team members realize their true potential.

 

 

 

 

 

"Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results."

 

 

 



 

 

 Management by objectives:

Goal: To cross the valley with the help of the Pole.

Objectives: To achieve this we have to divide our work and do it safely and efficiently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Three Monks

Here is a short story about three monks, and how they struggle to manage their responsibilities in a monastery to replenish the water. It is very insightful for budding managers who wants to increase the productivity of their respective organizations.

 

 

“A monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water."

 

 

Here are some of the lessons a Manager can get from this movie :

 

1) Sharing of Responsibility:

 

 

This story teaches a gentle, humorous lesson about responsibility. Three monks allow personal pride to interfere with the performance of daily tasks, each believing that the other two should be the ones to go downhill to fetch water. This point to the general human psyche of trying to avoid work and behave like a superior with others. In the story all 3 monks are completely capable of fetching the water from downhill and would have done so in absence of others. Hence the important lesson here is that at our workplace we are driven more so by not our capabilities and potential rather than on our pride and prejudice against a certain type of work. Hence while delegating responsibility among employees the preferences and choice of an individual must be kept in mind along with his potential.

 

2) Bureaucracy:

 

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.          

 

This story also criticizes bureaucracy that are extremely inefficient and ineffective. In any organization eliminating bureaucracy completely is not possible but it should be designed to be minimalistic and efficient. In many organization especially government owned so many people are hired but nobody does any job because everyone wanted somebody else to do the job, just like the way those three monks expecting others to get the water.

 

3) Continuous and Drastic Innovation: 

 “Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”

The story also depicts how a tragedy or crisis situation can be beneficial for the organization. As the number of monks grew from 1 to 2 and then 3 all of them were trying to pass on the job to other rather than trying to find a way out through which the job can be easily done. It was only after the temple caught fire that they realized the need to work together and find a faster way of getting the water up to the temple. This is when they thought of implementing a pulley system otherwise they might have continued with the traditional system of fetching the water by walking down to the river forever. Such a situation is very dangerous in today’s competitive world since there is always a chance of your competitor developing a new technology which can lead to obsoleteness and hence shutting down of operations for an organization. Successful Organizations today are those which are continuously hunting for internal and external development.

 

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

 

“An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.”

We all strive for success in our professional as well as personal lives. But success is not that easy to accomplish. To be successful, first we need to have an aim in our life and after that we need to work hard to achieve those aims by setting up SMART Goals.

So what are these SMART Goals?

“Smart” here is an acronym and each letter defines the traits that should be kept in mind while setting up goals.

 

S – Specific, Simple, Strategic, Sustainable.

M – Measurable,

A – Achievable, Ambitious.

R – Realistic, Rational.

T – Time, Tangible.

How to set Smart Goals in an Organization ?

In an Organization Goals should be set in a way that they are more than what it has achieved earlier but less than the potential. Goals achieved by you should be below what you have set as the target. In this way you will strive to give your best the next time and improve your productivity in the process. You will ultimately achieve what you aim for but in this way you will always think that there is still room for improvement which will eventually  lead to increase in the potential of the organization.

 

“A Goal is not Always meant to be Reached, it often servers simply as something to Aim at.”